Public bus to secondary

[Jumpering]

My DD is due to start secondary in September and is turning 11 at the end of August. To get there she will need to get a public bus. It’s a 30-40 minute journey with a 5 minute walk at either end. The 5 minute walk at the school end is a busy town centre which can be slightly rough. My main concern is that the bus arrives half an hour before school starts and leaves 45 minutes after school ends. Is she going to be capable of this or do I have to drive her? I’m torn between letting her have some independence and going nuts with worry!

Sounds pretty standard to me.

Do some dry runs over the holidays. Get her to buy the ticket, read bus timetables (probably on her phone), and have a plan b for if the bus is late or doesn’t turn up.

She won’t be the only kid on the bus, so if it is late, then all the other school kids will be late as well. The schools are used to this.

Sounds fine to me. Can she stay at school and do homework to fill some of that gap after school? Or do an after school club

I have to say it doesn't sound ideal to me, with the awkward gaps between transport, though admittedly I'm speaking as a London parent that expects buses to run every 10 mins. I'm sure your DD would be capable of getting the bus and walking through the town (all secondary kids do that in London) but relying on a single bus and having to wait around for it in the morning and afternoon isn't ideal. Will she have anywhere to wait in the 30 mins before school starts - she probably won't be allowed on site? Is there a breakfast club, or would she be waiting around on the street (potentially in the rain) for the gate to open?
How long would it be until the next bus, if she can't get on the afternoon bus, say if she was staying after school for an hour? And a 45 min wait is quite long in the winter when it gets dark before they get out of school.How reliable is the bus service - if that bus doesn't run for any reason, it would presumably be a long wait until the next one? Would you be available to come to pick her up if the bus lets her down, or would you be in work?

Only you know if your daughter is capable but that doesn't sound an unreasonable journey for a Year 7 student. Start practicing!

With such a long bus journey is there not a school bus ? Or are you sending her to a school out of catchment area etc ? She is still young and I think I would be tempted u til she finds her feet and hopefully meets fellow students on the route to take her. I would take her the first term and see how it goes. Maybe start the bus the second term.

That sounds unmanageable to me but obviously from pp others do it!

What time will she be leaving home/arriving home?

What will she do while shes 30mins early? Is school open? Several secondaries here won't open the gates so they'd literally be hanging around outside a locked gate here. Same with afterwards- can they sit in the library/etc or do they need to be off the grounds? Where will they wait? 45mins every day stood at busstop in all weather's will soon get tiring.

I'd only do those comutes if there wasn't also the timing issues with school. And even then only if there wasn't a nearer school!

Either there will be a whole bunch of other kids doing this and she'll have company, or you've opted to send her further than necessary. There's a world of difference between doing that sort of commute with a dozen others and doing it alone.

It's the waiting around that's the problem, not the distance in itself. Hopefully it's possible to stay in school in the library/homework club so she's not standing around quite so long. I'd be asking the school about that. 45 minutes presumably means that if she does an after-school club she misses that bus and may have a long wait for the next - really unfortunate timings.

Are the buses reliable? (My DD has given up on the one with best timings for her as it is so often cancelled, and now takes the one before. She's sixth-form, which means she can get in before the doors officially open.)

I agree that it really depends on how happy she is to wait around and whether there is somewhere to wait. My DC's school is open half an hour before official registration and they choose to arrive early. They'd be able to stay for an hour after school in the library. Is that possible at your school? Mine used to choose to stay after school in Y7 so the buses would be quieter. But when the evenings started getting darker that was a much less appealing prospect so it stopped. Getting home in the dark in November is not much fun.

Do some practice runs in the holiday and she'll be fine. She won't be the only one doing that journey.

Do you know she won't be the only one doing that journey? Depends where OP lives/why she's chosen that school and that could be an important piece of info. It's definitely easier if there's multiple people doing it.

And yes to it all being worse in the dark.

Where we are school buses only serve the villages with no public transport at all. Everyone else is expected to take public transport. We only have one bus an hour but luckily it’s only a 30 minute journey. Some villages only have 4 buses a day.

I did this as a kid from 11 with a few other kids who got on the bus at different stops. We’d generally walk in 2s and 3s up to school then bump in to each other in the way back to the bus stop.

It’s easily do-able, and rough areas are generally rough later on. Mornings and afternoons are often fine.

When I started school I had 2-3 buses and a 40 minute journey which was quite the contrast to the less than 1 minute walk to my primary school! My mum and a friends took turns to take us to school on the bus for the first couple of days and then left us to it. Would something like that be an option?

I have the same, but my kids are older now (year 9 and 11). They get the bus there and back every day now but at the start, I was taking them in and picking them up (I was self employed at the time so I was able to - if you can’t, you can’t and many kids do this around here so it’s fine).

It’s annoying because the school is only about 7 miles away, but the timing of the buses is rubbish. It’s a grammar which is why she’s not going to the local school. No dedicated bus and we’re in the middle of nowhere so I don’t think there will necessarily be many other kids on the same route. It’s tricky for me to take her because I have a younger DC at primary so she’d have to wait around for me anyway.

45mins every day stood at busstop in all weather's will soon get tiring

Why would she spend 45 minutes every day standing at a bus stop? OP says it's a busy town centre. If she can't stay at school, there might be a public library. There will be shops and cafes. There might be a park, for when the weather's fine.

And by the time she has got out of school, stood chatting with her friends for a bit, and walked to the bus stop, it won't be 45 minutes anyway.

Sounds fine, they become independent very quickly. I'd just want to be sure she can go straight into school when she arrives and again in the afternoon can hang out somewhere whether at school or in the town till bus comes.

Some very good advice on here, practice a few times over the holidays, just before she starts in September, remember there will be lots of other students on the bus too. She may find someone to walk with.

My ds is an August born, and he had a similar journey in year 7, although the walk at school end was 10 mins - except it was a 'school bus', but not specifically for his school, which is why the timings didn't tie in. The school it served finished at 3.30 and his at 3, so he nearly an hour to wait for the bus after school. It was fine, because kids tended to hang around at school playing football or table tennis and the school gates weren't closed until 4. He also arrived about half an hour before school started, but the gates were already open - I think this is fairly normal?

The area he had to walk through was very rough - not a town centre, but a fairly deprived 'high street' in an inner city suburb. He did used to complain about the drug addicts passed out on the pavement and the slightly edgy atmosphere, but nothing ever happened and there were plenty of kids walking the same way.

By the Feb of year 7 ds was desperate to switch from the school bus to public transport, as it was more flexible. He wasn't good at keeping time! From year 8 he took two buses/ a train and tram and managed that fine too, including a change in the city centre. They do grow up quickly once they're at secondary.

They do grow up quickly once they're at secondary

I used to regularly catch an afternoon bus used by schoolchildren going home. In September one could easily spot the Y7s - they were so small and new and shiny. By the end of the autumn term they were indistinguishable from all the others.

All the kids round here take the train into town, from our village. Only one every half hour, and often cancelled as is it the rural line. Some of the kids then have to change trains in town to go onwards, often they don't match up, and when they are cancelled they have to run through town to make connections, a good 15 minute run, top to bottom. They also need to make sure they get off at their stops....... Looking at you DD! And need to wherewithall to get off at the next, cross the platform, and get the next train back again.

All good life learning experiences.

Depends on the area and if travel times are reliable - most of the kids in my son's class are late often because of a commute like this. We live near Reigate and if there are problems on the M25, it impacts a few towns / roads in the area.

does the grammer school have a bus route that’s closer. ? I know you said your not in the bus route but would it be easier to drop her on the school bus route. ? I say this as one of my friends did this. She would drive her to the closest bus stop and then she would get on and meet others. Find out the routes.

won’t she just spend some of the time going into the nearest macdonalds to get a drink with her friends?

That's why I asked if the school was open earlier - one of the schools here does open early, the other opens at 8.27 on the dot.... so no there would be nowhere to wait.

Similarly - others assumed there would be lots going the same way, and it was worth clarifying as OP has said there won't be.

I know mine (at a grammar) does feel a bit sorry for those with the long commutes, however on the whole it is a fab school so is worth it so may well be for your child!